


Robots In Love

by ValiantOrange



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Computers, F/F, Fluff, Mathematics, Mercy is an engineer in this, Nanomachines, Research
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-08-20
Updated: 2018-09-08
Packaged: 2019-06-29 23:28:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 9,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15739491
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ValiantOrange/pseuds/ValiantOrange
Summary: Love is hard, math is harder.





	1. An Axiomatic Encounter

Harvard – October 6, 2039

Angela strolled through the halls of the Maxwell Dworkin building, trying to find room 227. She held her smartphone in her hand, looking down at it every so often to reassure herself that she was, in fact, in the proper building. Angela had arrived in Cambridge a week ago, and hadn’t quite found time to properly explore the campus properly yet. She eventually came to a stop in front of room 227, giving her phone one last check before walking in. It was 11:23, and the class she was trying to sit in on didn’t start until 11:50. She’d grossly overestimated how lost she thought she’d get, but this gave her time to catch up on some readings that her advisor had assigned her.

Today was supposed to be the first day of the semester, though Dr. Harold Winston was the kind of man who didn’t believe in waiting to start, so he’d already sent her a few thousand pages worth of research on nanomachines and distributed computing. Still, his eagerness was probably because Angela had proudly told him that she intended to solve the Overhead problem during her interview for the PhD position. Winston replied with a grin and a promise to hold her to it.

Angela took a seat towards the back of the class, by the door, pulling up a thirty year old paper titled “Molecular Communication for Nanomachines Using Intercellular Calcium Signaling” on her phone. Winston said he intended for her to follow the history of nanomachines, so she would have a strong understanding of the foundations. He also told her to sign up for some Computer Science courses, recommending CS161, warning her that at least ninety percent of her work would be programming.

Angela glanced up from her phone, noticing that she wasn’t alone in the classroom. At the front a girl stood by the whiteboard, her fingers smudged with blue ink. She had wavy black hair, with purple tips, and wore a dark grey Harvard hoodie that was definitely a few sizes too big for her. The girl hadn’t seemed to notice Angela, though, since her attention was fixed on the whiteboard. At the top left she’d written down series of symbols and Angela started translating them in her head. “Given a variable m, which is any arbitrary integer, show that m squared modulo seven always equals 0, 1, 2 or 4.” Angela set her phone down on the desk in front of her, studying the girl’s work.

The girl heard the phone clatter against the desk and spun, looking around. She paused when she noticed Angela, “Oh, uhh, hi?”

Angela waved at the girl, “Hello there. Is this the right classroom for CS161?”

The girl nodded, “Yup, though it doesn’t start for err,” she checked the clock in the back of the room, “Another 25 minutes.”

“Yeah, I’m new to the campus, so I gave myself a bit too much time to find the classroom,” Angela looked down at herself, feeling slightly overdressed. She had worn a white blouse and trousers, with a heavy red coat and boots. Meanwhile the girl in front of the classroom was wearing a hoodie and flip flops, which made Angela wonder how her feet hadn’t frozen off yet. “Oh, I’m Angela by the way.“

Olivia,” the girl muttered, turning back to her problem. Olivia had written down the first twenty square numbers, along with their modulo 7. Sure enough, as the problem implied, there was a repeating pattern of 0, 1, 2 and 4, though from what Angela could see, Olivia hadn’t made much progress towards answering why exactly the pattern occurred.

Other students started to flock into the classroom, and Olivia erased her work from the board, taking a seat at the front of the class and pulling out her ThinkPad. At 11:50 the professor arrived and class began. Angela had always preferred to take notes by hand, finding that she was too easily distracted when she had access to the internet, though she found herself stealing glances over the other students’ shoulders, trying to catch a look at Olivia’s back. Eventually she decided that she didn’t really need to know what was on the syllabus, and she wrote down the problem that had been on the white board, along with the list of square numbers.

Angela had taken some proof based courses during her undergrad studies, even though she hadn’t been required to. Every single one of the great minds in history seemed to have a strong background in mathematics, and Angela had always intended to stand on their shoulders for the best view she could get. So following in their footsteps and taking math courses had seemed like a natural decision.

As the professor rambled on about how grades would be distributed, Angela found herself lost in the world of numbers. Seven was a prime, so she’d initially thought there might be some significance to that, but exploring the modulos of prime numbers had led her nowhere. She found herself staring at the square numbers. On a whim she changed the base of the numbers to seven and the pattern started to open up, revealing a tantalizing glimpse of the ever elusive why hidden behind the numbers.

By the time class ended Angela had written out a solution in her notebook. She tore the paper out, watching the other students flock out past her desk and out of the classroom, debating if she should approach Olivia. Eventually Olivia walked by and Angela stood up, getting a look at her face. Olivia had deep purple eyes, along with one of the worst cases of resting bitch face she had ever seen. Angela held out the piece of paper, “Olivia, right? Here.”

Olivia took the paper, narrowing her eyes at it, “I’m not interested.”

“Oh, uhh, it’s not my number. Though there are many other numbers on there!” Angela gave a goofy grin, holding her thumbs up. Olivia rolled her eyes, opening the paper and reading as she walked away. Angela headed out too, walking in the opposite direction of Olivia. She pulled her phone out, checking her schedule. Angela’s next appointment was a lab meeting with Dr. Winston in two hours; more than enough time for a quick jog. A hand suddenly tapped on Angela’s shoulder, and Angela turned, seeing Olivia standing behind her, out of breath.

“Did you just run across the hallway?” Angela said as Olivia took a second to compose herself.

“Y-yeah,” Olivia said, “Hey, uhh, sorry, what was your name again?”

“Angela. Angela Ziegler,” Angela said.

“Okay, any chance you didn’t remember my name?”

Angela shook her head, “It was Olivia. I just said it.”

“Ah crap, now I feel like an asshole,” Olivia flashed a sheepish smile, looking dangerously cute for an instant, “Can I buy you a coffee?”

Angela glanced down at Olivia’s hand, which was still holding onto her proof, “I think that depends.”

“On?”

“Did you understand my proof?”

Olivia held the piece of paper up, “Well yeah, but how the hell did you think to change the number base?”

Angela smiled warmly, “Now that’s a conversation I’d love to have over coffee.”

__________________________________

Olivia led Angela to the LISE building, which had a cafe in the entrance. On the walk over she’d gotten a better look at the tall stranger, deciding that she was worth impressing with a proper drink, “Go ahead and get whatever you’d like,” Olivia said when they stepped in, gesturing for Angela to step ahead of her in line.

Angela approached the counter, ordering a black coffee with a splash of milk. Olivia ordered a caramel mocha, paying for both their drinks and following Angela to a seat. Angela had clasped her hands together, glancing out into space. She had wild blonde hair that she’d forced back into a ponytail, and a thin pair of metal frames sat on her face over her bright blue eyes. Olivia plopped down in the seat across from her, setting their drinks down, “Hey, uhh, sorry again. I thought you were just some basic bitch trying to get in my pants.”

Angela laughed softly, and the sound was sweeter than any mocha Olivia had ever had. Angela cleared her throat, “Okay, so look at this. If we take the numbers 1 through 10 and square them we get 1, 4, 9, 16, 25, 36, 49, 64, 81, and 100. If we them modulo those with 10 we get 1, 4, 9, 6, 5, 6, 9, 4, 1 and 0. Now take 11 to 20 and square them. 121, 144, 169, and so on. If we take those and modulo them with 10 we get the exact same sequence of numbers.”

“Right that’s because the last digit of a product is only affected by the last digit of the two multipliers, and modulo 10 just gives the last digit of a number” Olivia leaned closer to Angela, smelling the coffee between them.

“You’re almost there, Olivia,” Angela grinned, “I think I’ll let you stumble around a bit.”

“Oh come on!” Olivia pouted before turning back to the paper. She blinked, looking at the sequence of base 7 numbers Angela had written. “Oh,” she flatly said. “Okay, yeah I’m an idiot. When you’re in base 7 the last digit of the square numbers can only end with 0, 1, 2 or 4 because only the last digit matters. And when we’re in base 7, the last digit is the solution to that number modulo 7.

“Exactly,” Angela drank some of her coffee.

Olivia rested her forehead in her hand, staring down at the paper, “That’s incredible. Don’t tell my number theory professor you gave me the answer, okay?” She looked across the table at Angela, who was quietly watching Olivia think, “You said you were new on campus?”

Angela nodded, “I arrived in Cambridge last week. I’m starting a PhD in Biomedical Engineering.”

“Wait, why are you sitting in on an undergrad CS course?”

“My advisor said he wanted me to get a stronger background in computer science, since it’s important for the work I’m trying to do,” Angela wrapped her hands around the cup of coffee, letting it warm her hands.

“Who’s your advisor?” Olivia folded up Angela’s proof, sliding it into her backpack.

“Dr. Harold Winston, I’m in his Nanomachine Research Lab.” Angela picked up her coffee, holding it to her lips.

“Woah! Whose dick do I have to suck to get in on that action?”

Angela spat out a bit of coffee back into her cup, coughing. Olivia grabbed her water bottle from her backpack and offered it to Angela. Angela took a drink of water, coughing again, then looked back at Olivia, “I’d say Winston’s, but he’s a bit too straight edge.” She handed Olivia her bottle back.

Olivia took the bottle, studying Angela, “Hmm, what is your thesis going to be about?”

Angela’s eyes lit up and she drained her coffee, “Have you heard of the Nanomachine Communication Overhead Problem?”

Olivia squinted, racking her brain, “I can’t say I have.”

Angela pushed her glasses back up her nose, “Okay, so right now nanomachines are capable of executing a preset sequence of commands, which is why we’re capable of those demonstrations where they form random shapes. However, all those demonstrations happen in extremely controlled environments, and there aren’t any decisions being made by the swarm of machines beyond where to go. The Overhead problem states that in order to have a swarm of nanomachines react dynamically to real life problems, we would have to use most of each individual nanomachine’s processing power to communicate with the other machines in the swarm; meaning that there’s no effective way to have a robust system of nanomachines that can react to unknown variables.” Angela placed both her arms against the table, supporting herself as she almost closed the space between the two, leaning in close enough for Olivia to faintly smell lilies.

Olivia found herself pulled in by Angela’s enthusiasm, losing herself in the PhD student’s blue eyes.

“IEEE has a 5 million dollar reward for anyone who can solve the problem, or prove that it’s impossible to solve,” Angela noticed how close she was to Olivia and pulled back suddenly, “Err, yeah. That’s what I’d like to do my research on.”

“Huh. Why’s that?”

Angela rubbed the back of her neck, “You know those healing beams that are in videogames?”

“Oh yeah! Like in TF2,” Olivia smiled.

“Exactly like in TF2,” Angela tilted her head, “Though that game is over 30 years old. Why do you know about it?”

“I could ask you the same question.”

“Would you believe me if I said that I tracked it down and played it to get inspiration for my research?”

Olivia raised an eyebrow, chuckling slightly, “Y’know, you had a window where you could’ve convinced me that you were this graceful aloof intellectual.”

“Ah, curses, I assume it’s long since passed,” Angela let out an exaggerated sigh, “Now you know the truth.”

“You’re an absolute dweeb. Don’t worry though, I prefer dweebs.”

Angela held her arms apart, “Guilty as charged. So, how about you? You’re in CS right?”

Olivia nodded, “I’m doing a double major: CS and math.”

“Hard to go wrong with those, why’d you decide to study them?”

“I don’t know if I’m quite ready for you to discover how much of a nerd I am,” Olivia finished her caramel mocha, wiping whipped cream from her lips.

“You’re the one that brought TF2 up in the first place,” Angela slyly grinned at Olivia, “And you’re the one that was doing math on the whiteboard before class began.”

“Oh right, damn,” Olivia rubbed her chin, “I, uhh. I really like computers,” she trailed off.

Angela let out a soft laugh, “It’s usually good to like the thing that you’re studying.”

“No, I,” Olivia sighed, “It’s just that computers are everywhere you look. They’re the most important thing humanity has ever invented, and when you get down to it, everything in a computer comes down to binary. We’ve taken the simplest possible thing: a 1 or a 0, a yes or a no; and turned it into systems so elaborate that we don’t even know how some of them work.”

 Angela wordlessly gestured for Olivia to continue.

“And, well, math is just,” Olivia glanced at the ceiling, uncertain. After a minute she turned back to Angela, who was patiently waiting, “Math is our way of trying to express the rules of the universe, and every time someone opens a door it leads to a room with even more doors. It’s this endless journey of discovery that a small part of our species has decide to embark on. And, in a way, it’s as if there’s this small part of the universe reflecting back upon itself, trying to understand the very thing that it’s a part of.” Olivia looked back down, “One could argue that our attempts to understand the universe are just an extension of our desire to understand ourselves. And, uhh, y’know, why wouldn’t you want to be a part of that?”

“Perhaps I should learn more math,” Angela said.

“I could learn with you,” Olivia immediately replied.

“Are you sure you’re not just looking for someone to do your homework for you?” Angela flashed a knowing look to Olivia.

“As if I’d deprive myself of the thrill of discovery,” Olivia smiled, “How about meeting after the OS class? Are you usually free around now?”

“And what will we be learning?” Angela said.

Olivia leaned back, humming softly, “Let’s not constrain ourselves so early. We’ve got an infinite universe to explore.”

“Is this your way of saying you’ll figure it out later?” Angela hopped up, grabbing the empty cups and tossing them in a trashcan nearby.

“Miss Ziegler, however did you know?” Olivia stood up too, “I’ll make sure to bring a challenging problem for you to work on next time, okay?”

“Make sure it’s challenging for me, not just for you,” Angela teased.

“Oh, you’re going to regret that,” Olivia pulled out her phone, handing it to Angela, “Here, call yourself.”

Angela took the phone and called herself, verifying Olivia’s number once it popped up. They parted ways once they left the cafe, Olivia had another class and Angela had to make her way to her advisor’s office, both eager for the next session of CS161.


	2. An Unbounded Set

Olivia arrived in room 227 of the Maxwell Dworkin building thirty minutes before class was supposed to start. She sat down at her usual spot towards the front of the classroom, idly scrolling through the power point slides for today’s lecture in Operating Systems. While she never really understood what was in the slides, it exposed her to the material before the professor explained it. Olivia had no idea why it worked, but she’d gotten better grades ever since she’d started doing it.

The clock continued ticking, and other students started to arrive for class, but there was still no sign of Angela. The professor arrived and made his way to the front of the class, waiting for the clock to hit 11:50. Thirty seconds after class was scheduled to start Angela flung open the door, panting. Today she was wearing baggy jeans and had a dark blue down jacket on. Her hair seemed to somehow be messier than usual, and dark there were dark circles under her eyes. Olivia glanced back at her, giving an incredulous look at Angela’s haggard appearance.

“Sorry, sorry, I lost track of time,” she said between breaths, taking a seat at the back of the room by the door.

Olivia pulled her phone out under her desk, typing out a message while keeping her gaze on the professor as he started to lecture about processes. “That’s certainly a different look than last time.”

Angela’s phone beeped loudly, and the professor stopped talking, all eyes in the classroom turning to the back. Angela’s face turned red and she shot Olivia a glare before apologizing again as she turned her phone on silent.

Olivia stared down in her lap, horrified by what’d she had done. A message arrived from Angela reading “ :/ “. It was quickly followed with, “In my defense, I haven’t slept today.” Olivia pondered her reply as another message arrived, “I can’t believe I left my phone on.”

Olivia tapped out a quick, “Sorry!” She glanced up at the professor and quickly copied the notes on the board onto her tablet, typing another message under the desk with her other hand, “You wanna raincheck for today? Get some sleep.”

“Nah, I’m curious to see what you’ve got for me, if you don’t mind the fact that I haven’t showered. Now focus on class, you’re paying good money to be here!” Angela typed, turning her phone off and putting it back in her bag.

Olivia rolled her eyes at the message and turned her attention to the professor. Maybe she’d show Angela by getting a better grade than her on the first exam.

__________________________________

Olivia stood over Angela three minutes after class had ended. They were the only ones left in the classroom, and Angela had fallen asleep with her fist propping up her head so it looked like she was still paying attention. Olivia giggled, dropping her backpack on the desk next to Angela, causing the PhD student to jump from her seat, looking around wildly.

“Good morning Miss Pot,” Olivia said with a sing song.

“Mmm, so you admit you’re the kettle,” Angela said, pulling her glasses up and rubbing her eyes. “Okay, tired grad student needs caffeine.”

“Tired grad student needs sleep,” Olivia said, helping Angela up.

“Unfortunately I’ve got a meeting with Dr. Winston after we do some math. Once I survive that I’ll go home and do the sleep thing,” Angela yawned as she stood up, causing Olivia to yawn in response.

“Damn it now you’ve got me tired,” Olivia shook her head, “Same cafe as last time?”

Angela nodded, and the two made the short walk over to the cafe in the entrance of the LISE building. Angela had insisted on paying during the walk over, and forced Olivia to go ahead of her in line. Olivia ordered her usual caramel mocha, then Angela stepped up next to her. She pointed at the largest cup they had, “How much to fill one of those with espresso?”

The barista replied with a look somewhere between fear and awe.

“I’m just messing with you,” Angela gave a sleepy smile, “I do want something with espresso, but I don’t really drink coffee; so what’s a drink with espresso in it?”

Olivia raised an eyebrow at Angela’s rambling, not sure if she found this worrying or hilarious.

“I’ll get you a cappuccino,” the barista said, ringing Angela up.

The two found a seat by the windows, and Angela took a deep drink from her cappucino.

“Do you just not feel heat in your mouth or something?” Olivia said, blowing on her own drink.

“I just don’t feel heat anymore, I’m numb to it. I did my undergrad at ASU,” Angela leaned back in her seat, giving a happy sigh.

“Ohoh, you’re made of sturdier stuff than you look like,” Olivia tested her mocha, deciding it was still too hot. She got a better look at the bags under Angela’s eyes, shaking her head, “It’s only the fourth day of class this semester, Blondie. How the hell have you already had to pull an all nighter?”

“I, uhh, didn’t have to do this one. I lost track of time when working in the lab last night,” Angela drank more coffee, feeling a strange mix of tiredness and energy, “I finally got my hands on some nanomachines.”

Olivia let out a low whistle, “Yeah I’d probably forget to sleep if I got to play with some of those. So, onto math. I’ve got two problems for you today.”

“The way you say that makes it sound like you already know the solutions,” Angela said, eyes half open.

“Indeed I do.”

“Where’d you find these problems? It’s not more of your homework is it?” Angela sat up, pulling out a new notebook with a mechanical pencil tucked into the metal coils, and setting it down on the table.

“What a diligent student I have,” Olivia smiled, “And no, I found them online. So, first question. There are 100 coins on a table. You have no way to tell which side of the coin is facing up, however you are told that there are 90 coins with tails facing up, and 10 coins with heads facing up.”

Angela started writing down the problem, glancing up at Olivia when she could.

“You are allowed to move the coins around, and even flip them, however you will have no way to tell which side is facing up. How can you divide the coins into two groups such that there are an equal amount of coins with heads facing up in both groups?” Olivia held her arms apart as she presented the problem.

Angela hummed as she finished writing down the problem, “Since we have no way to know how many heads there are in any of the groups, we’ll have to try to find a general solution that works for arbitrary numbers of coins.” Angela started twirling her pencil between her fingers as she stared at the problem.

Olivia smiled as she watched Angela lose herself to thought, seeing her fidget with her pencil and occasionally her glasses between bursts of scribbling on the paper.

“Okay, lets start by dividing the coins into two equal sized groups of 50 coins each. We’ll call one group A and one group B. If there are N coins in group A, there are 10 – N coins in group B. But since we don’t know which coins are the ones with heads facing up, we have no way to manipulate the number of heads in either group unless we just randomly swap coins.” Angela rubbed her chin, “The only way to know the number of heads in the group after changing something would be to just swap them all, then there would be N tails in A.”

Angela started laughing, staring down at the circles she’d drawn around variables to represent groups of coins, “Okay, there we go. Group A has 90 coins, and group B has 10. This is because there are 10 total heads between both groups. So in B there are N heads and 10 – N tails. In group A there are 10 – N heads. So if we just flip all the coins in group B, the 10 – N tails become 10 – N heads, and boom! Same amount of heads in both piles.”

Olivia’s smiled widened, “You got that significantly faster than I did. And you haven’t slept, geeze,” she shook her head, “Grad students are scary.”

“Fear my power, puny undergrad,” Angela said as she finished writing out the answer in the notebook and underlined it.

“So, that was an old interview question that Google used,” Olivia finally took a sip from her mocha, it had turned warm in the time Angela took to answer, “Congratulations! You’ve got a job at one of the most prestigious tech companies in the world.”

Angela clapped her hands together, “My parents would be so proud.”

Olivia chose not to bring up the ‘would’, continuing on with the math, “Okay, second question.”

Angela turned a to new page, nodding as she took another gulp of coffee.

“An arbitrary amount of pieces of chocolate are placed into a jar, along with one chili. Two players alternate taking between 1 and 3 pieces of candy, until one of them has to take the chili and eat it. Is there a way to guarantee that you’ll win?” Olivia held up a finger as she explained the rules.

Angela slyly looked up from the notebook after she finished writing, “Now that’s no fun. Where’s the chocolate and the chili?”

“Hey, we’re doing math not playing games.”

“Why not turn it into a game? Are you doing anything Friday night?” Angela steepled her hands together, tucking them under her nose and leaning forward.

“Calm down there Gendo,” Olivia looked into Angela’s eyes, “Let’s see. I’m a twenty-one year old undergrad in Computer Science and Math. Of course I don’t have plans, what would I do go to a club?” Olivia feigned a look of disgust, “I was probably going to sit at home and mess around on my computer. Worse comes to worse, I can sit at your place and mess around on my computer.”

“Oh? So it’s my place then? Very well, I’ll get the chocolate on the condition that you go out and find the hottest pepper you can find,” Angela’s arms lowered, “Lets say you get to pick how many pieces of chocolate get put in the jar, I get to pick who goes first.”

“Ohoh, someone’s already thinking about how to win.”

“I’m a competitive person,” Angela stood up, “Oh, would you be interested in meeting Dr. Winston to talk about potentially joining his lab? He said he wants to find more undergrads to help with his grad student’s projects.”

Olivia’s eyes widened, “Holy shit, you’d do that for me?”

“Why would I offer if I wouldn’t?” Angela drained the rest of her drink, “I’ve got to run to my meeting, I’ll text you my address okay?”

Olivia waved from her seat, still dazed at the opportunity ahead of her.

__________________________________

Friday came, and Angela headed back to her apartment after her classes. She’d managed to get her hands on a few bars of Toblerone. It wasn’t her first pick, but she’d be damned if she would eat anything other than Swiss chocolate.

She had decided to not fuss too much about her appearance, figuring that Olivia wasn’t the type to either, and had settled on her favorite green flannel shirt, with jeans that were a little more form fitting than her baggy jeans.

At 6:13 in the evening there was a knock at her door, and Angela hurried over, opening it. Olivia was wearing a different hoodie today, this time it was maroon instead of the usual grey. It still read Harvard across the chest, though. She held up a bag with a single pepper in it, “Yo.”

Angela opened the door wider, beckoning Olivia into her apartment and taking the chili. Olivia glanced down as she walked in, noticing a small rack for shoes. She slid hers off, placing them in an empty spot and walking into the living room. Angela still hadn’t finished moving in from what she could see of the tiny, one bedroom apartment. The kitchen and living room were connected with the entrance, though there was a small balcony outside. Angela had set up a desk, along with her computer, in the living room. In the corners were piles of boxes filled with unpacked books, and in the center of the living room was a couch next to a low table.

“Do you always wear a hoodie?” Angela asked as Olivia looked around.

“Yup, they’re stylish but practical and give off an aloof yet badass vibe,” Olivia pulled her hood up and grabbed the cords on either side, “Plus I get to do this,” she yanked on the cords, pulling the hood shut, “Now I’m Kenny,” she mumbled.

“Doesn’t he wear an orange hoodie?” Angela opened the plastic bag, looking inside at what could best be described as an angry looking wrinkled mass of red with a green stem, “What horrific creation have you brought to my apartment,” she said, picking the pepper out of the bag.

“Nuances,” Olivia waved a hand as she pulled the hood down, “That’s the fourth iteration of the Carolina Reaper.”

“You’re a brave woman,” Angela said as she walked around the counter to the kitchen. She pulled out large mason jar, dropping the pepper inside, “How much chocolate?”

“I’m the brave woman? Somebody’s cocky,” Olivia approached the counter, standing across from Angela, “Let’s go with fifteen pieces of chocolate.”

Angela started breaking the Tolberone apart, dropping fifteen pieces into the jar. “I’ll go first,” she said, grabbing three pieces of chocolate.

Olivia narrowed her eyes, “You really sure about that? Not to late to drop one of those pieces.” she grinned.

“Your move, Olivia.”

“Y’know that thing has a scoville rating of like 2 million. This might kill me Angela,” Olivia said, taking three pieces out.

“Then perish,” Angela took one piece out.

“Oh no,” Olivia grabbed a single piece and Angela immediately grabbed three.

“Okay yeah, I lose,” Olivia grabbed two, and Angela grabbed the last two, “Before I commit ritual suicide by pepper, how’d you figure it out?”

“I shall grant you this one mercy,” Angela popped one of the pieces of chocolate into her mouth, savoring it, “I first tried thinking about what would happen if you just grabbed three pieces every time. It was pretty easy to see how that system could be beaten. So I then started thinking about the amount of pieces we could take; one to three. From there, it’s fairly simple to see that you can easily make it so that every round, a total of four pieces are taken between the players.” Angela held out another piece to Olivia, who took it. “Enjoy your last meal. But yeah, so the trick is to go first, get the total number of pieces down to a multiple of four, then you’re guaranteed to be able to get the last pieces of chocolate.”

Olivia studied the triangular chocolate, “By the way, your accent, is it Swiss?”

“Are only asking because of the chocolate?”

“You know it,” Olivia ate the triangle, crunching on the nuts inside.

Angela nodded, “I was born and raised in Switzerland. I transferred to ASU because I wanted to study abroad, and their transfer requirements were fairly easy to meet. Was this game another interview question?”

Olivia shook her head, “It’s from an old documentary about algorithms.” She held the Carolina Reaper up, “Let it not be said that I’m not a woman of my word.” She ate the pepper in one bite.

__________________________________

Olivia coughed between dry heaves over Angela’s toilet. Angela stood next to her with a half drunken glass of milk in one hand, and a carton of milk in the other. She had an extremely bemused expression on her face.

“Well, you’re not dead Olivia,” Angela held the glass out to Olivia, who emptied the rest of the glass in one swig, rinsing the milk around her mouth. “Though I think you wish you were.”

“Holy fucking shit, I’m not looking forward to shitting tonight,” she said, holding the glass up. Angela filled it back up and Olivia took another drink, coughing after she finished.

Angela chuckled, “I actually had some good news for you.”

“Please, anything to distract me from this suffering.”

Angela pulled her phone out, “Check out this email I got.”

Olivia looked over her shoulder at Angela’s phone, her lips swollen and red. It was from Dr. Winston, and it was only one line, “I’d love to meet your friend Olivia. Ask her when she’s free to grab lunch and we can all meet up and discuss what work we’ve got in the lab.”

Olivia wiped her watering eyes, “I’m free on Monday at noon.”

“Excellent, I’ll email him right now,” Angela started typing out a response to Dr. Winston.

Olivia moaned into the toilet bowl, “Should I dress up?”

Angela shook her head, “He seems the type that wishes he would wear a hoodie everywhere. Just go as if you were going to class.”

Olivia held up a thumb, “Roger wilco.” She stood up, “So, uhh, now what?” Olivia drank some more milk, trying to think of how she could stay in the apartment longer, “How about a movie or something?”

“Yeah, sure, we’ll have to watch it on my laptop though,” Angela turned and walked back into the living room. Olivia followed, plopping down on the couch while Angela fetched her laptop then opened it on the table, “How about that documentary about algorithms?”

“If you’re interested in older documentaries, I could show you one called AlphaGo instead?” Olivia leaned forward, noticing that Angela had the Ubuntu LTS installed on her laptop, along with the screen name Mercy.

Angela glanced over at Olivia, “AlphaGo’s that AI that played Go right?”

“Mmhmm, and is Mercy your handle?” Olivia asked, pointing at the open terminal on the screen.

Yeah, I picked it when I was young, and I’ve always liked the sound of the word,” Angela closed the terminal, opening up her browser, “What’s yours?”

“I use Sombra.”

“Ooooh, very mysterious sounding,” Angela teased, “So is AlphaGo also the name of the documentary?”

“Yeah, and shut up Miss Mercy,” Olivia tucked a pillow behind her.

Angela searched for the documentary on a private movie tracker she was a part of, quickly starting the torrent.. They leaned back into the chair, and Olivia noticed Angela shifting herself a bit closer.

“So, why Sombra?” Angela said, mousing over the progress of the download.

“Oh god,” Olivia rubbed the back of her neck, “It, uhh, means shadow.”

Angela started laughing, falling back into the couch, “Someone dressed in all back and wrote poetry during middle school.”

“Oh come on, Mercy is so dweeby.”

“Yeah, but at least I didn’t call myself Shadow,” Angela sat back up, “It’s cute, don’t worry.”

Olivia glanced over at the laptop, eager to change the subject, “Movie’s done downloading.”

“Oh, thanks,” Angela leaned down, opening the file and they let themselves get swept away in the story of AlphaGo’s battle against Lee Sedol.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey, thanks for checking out my first attempt at writing a romance story. So I was originally intending on waiting to start this after I finished my other fic, Big Iron, but then a friend of mine and I had a disagreement about whether of not math was art. So I felt inspired to start this a bit earlier. For now I think I'll be focusing on Big Iron, if you guys wanna check it out, but I'll make sure to keep this somewhat active.


	3. Binary Analysis

Olivia looked down at her phone, checking again at the name of the meeting spot then back up at the sign above her which read “Compiled Gyros”. Inside she could see robotic arms moving around an open kitchen in the back, rapidly preparing the lean cuts of meat and assembling gyros out of them. Behind the counter sat a rather bored looking girl with her black hair tied back, dressed more appropriately for a computer lab than a kitchen.

“Holy shit, that’s so cool,” she muttered under her breath before stepping in. The girl behind the counter perked up and glanced over at Olivia as Olivia scanned the patrons, spotting Angela sitting next to a skinny man who looked like he was in his late thirties.

Olivia approached the table and Angela stood up along with the man next to her. “Olivia!” she said, “This is Dr. Harold Winston,” Angela gestured towards Winston.

The sides of Winston’s hair had started to grey, though the top remained a deep brown. He had a lean build, with glasses and stubble. Winston was dressed like most of Olivia’s other professors; button down shirt and slacks, though he managed to have a slightly disheveled look in them. He smiled when he saw Olivia and extended a hand, “Pleasure to meet you,” Winston glanced behind him, “Shall I order us some lunch?”

Olivia shook his hand, returning his smile, “Yeah, hmm, I’ve never been here before,” she glanced over his shoulder at one of the robotic arms dicing onions so fast the knife was almost a blur, “I can’t believe I hadn’t even heard of it.”

Winston chuckled, “The owner’s a former student of mine,” he nodded towards the girl behind the counter, “Sang-mi always had a talent for robotics programming, though I never knew that she liked gyros so much.”

“That’s badass, when did she graduate?” Olivia’s smile widened.

“Last year. Why don’t I get us three classic gyros with fries?” Winston turned and approached Sang-mi, who smiled at him and started chattering.

Olivia went to follow, but Angela’s voice interrupted her, “He’s going to insist on paying if you try to pay for yourself.”

“Ahh, that type of person,” Olivia sat down next to Angela, “Is he the type to polite fight?”

“Oh god yes,” Angela chuckled, “One time one of his former students who’d founded a successful startup came back and the lab went out for dinner with him. The student got up to go to the bathroom and Winston went to pay when he wasn’t there. Turns out the student had actually secretly gone to pay. Now that was a battle for the ages.” She clasped her hands together, leaning closer to Olivia, “How’re you feeling? Don’t worry, he won’t be getting technical today, since the expectation is that you’re going to be learning on the job.”

Olivia let out a heavy sigh, “Oh thank god, I was up all night reading about nanomachine control theory, and I swear I understood maybe a tenth of it.”

“That sounds about right,” Angela nodded, “Get ready for a lot more of that.”

“Why did I want this lab position again?” Olivia said, faking a look of despair.

“Because nanomachines, son!”

Olivia stared blankly at Angela, “Did you just reference Metal Gear Revengeance?”

“Ahh, but you got the reference,” Angela held up a finger.

“Holy crap you’re such a dork,” Olivia giggled, adjusting her position in her seat.

“Takes one to know one,” Angela said as Winston came back to the table carrying a tray with three baskets with fries and gyros in them, along with three iced teas.

Winston set the food down on the table as he took his seat, “Okay, so I looked at your resume and you’re definitely someone we want in the lab. It mentioned that you have experience with distributed computing and networking?”

Olivia nodded, “The networking mostly comes from my focus in cybersecurity, and the distributed computing came from, err,” she smiled nervously, “From curiosity in botnets.”

Winston chuckled, “Amazing, you ever hear of Mirai?”

“Who hasn’t?” Olivia’s eyes lit up, “I remember reading about her when I was younger and looking up the source code online. I couldn’t understand a bit of it, to be honest.”

Angela tentatively held up a hand, “I haven’t heard of Mirai.”

“Mirai was one of the biggest botnets in history,” Olivia grabbed a fry, “This was way back in the early 2010s.”

“It’s actually a pretty crazy story,” Winston started unwrapping his gyro, “If you’ve got some free time it’s a fun read.”

“I’ll have to remember that,” Angela bowed her head, “Sorry about the interruption.”

Winston waved his hand, “Don’t even worry,” he turned back to Olivia, “Well, we don’t really work in security in my lab, but we do a lot of work with distributed computing. Y’know, because nanomachines and all.” He rubbed his chin, “Would you be able to commit Friday from four to six in the afternoon for lab meetings?”

Olivia nodded as she ate some fries.

“Great, other than that most of the work can be done on your own time. Let me tell you about some of the projects some of my grad students are working on, and we can find you someone to work with.”

“How about Angela’s project?” Olivia said.

“Actually, you don’t have any undergrads yet, do you?” Winston turned to Angela, who was mid-bite of her gyro.

Angela quickly chewed, and drank some tea, clearing her throat, “No not yet. I’ve been mostly working alone.”

“Well, hey! I guess that can work.”

Olivia smiled, “So, uhh, what are the logistics of this?”

Winston laughed softly, “Ah, you’ve got that look where you want to know how much we’ll pay you, but you don’t want to be rude and ask about money. We pay our undergrads twenty-five an hour and we’ll have you on for five hours a week at first. I’ll email you all the paperwork, along with the details of what I’ll expect of you later, okay?”

Olivia nodded, picking up her gyro, “I’ll look forward to it.”

__________________________________

A month had passed since Olivia’s meeting with Winston. He’d sent her a list of readings along with all the paperwork and had explained that to start she should focus on getting to the point where she’d be comfortable working with nanomachines.

The first wave of exams had last week; including the Operating Systems class, and Olivia hadn’t seen Angela outside of class or lab, mostly because of how busy she was with studying.

The weekend had come, and Olivia had decided to take a day off of academics and just mess around on personal projects. A bit past noon she received an email from the Operating Systems Professor stating that the grades for the first exam were up. Five minutes later Angela texted her, “How did you do on the exam?”

Olivia quickly replied, “That was fast.”

“You know me, I’m basically attached to my computer. I’m pretty happy with my score.”

Olivia smiled, “Oh? How confident?”

“Are you trying to start another wager?”

“Always.”

There was a slight pause before Angela sent, “Very well. What are the stakes?”

Olivia hummed under her breath, thinking. After a minute she typed out,“If I win I get to play with the nanomachines you’ve got in the lab.”

“You can just ask for that whenever you want, how about loser buys winner lunch?”

“Deal, you go first Blondie.”

Angela sent a screenshot of her score, a 98 percent.

Olivia’s smile turned into a grin, “Oh wow, that’s really good for an ASU graduate. I’ll take that lunch right now if you’re free.” She sent a screenshot of her own score, a 100.

“No wonder you disappeared for the last week. You played me! I’ll grab lunch and bring it to your dorm if you’d like?”

Olivia looked around her room. Calling it a mess didn’t quite do it justice. Her roommate had dropped out a week after class started, and hadn’t been replaced yet, so Olivia had let herself go a bit. “Get something that takes a while to cook,” she sent.

“That bad, huh?”

“Hey! No judgement, I’m just living the dorm life.”Olivia got up and started grabbing the dirty clothes scattered around the floor.

“I’ll be over in about an hour in that case,” Angela sent. Olivia sped up her pace, determined to have something presentable before Angela arrived.

__________________________________

An hour later Angela was standing outside of Olivia’s dorm room holding a deep dish pizza. Olivia threw the door open, revealing a slightly less messy than average dorm room. She’d pushed the two beds in the room together, and had moved the two desks together so they formed a right angle, setting up her laptop and tablet on one desk and all her textbooks and notebooks on the other. In one corner of the room was a basket packed with dirty clothes, and a large trash bag that looked like it had just been filled.

“Hey this isn’t too bad,” Angela stepped in, placing the box down on one of the desks, “You move fast.”

“Only the best for Miss Ziegler,” Olivia said, plopping down in her seat by her laptop.

Angela took the other chair and glanced at the monitor, “What are you working on?”

“Ah, just a bit of a personal project,” Olivia cycled through the tabs, “You’ve seen those self driving golf carts around campus right?”

“Yeah for the disabled students right?”

“Yup. And the athletes,” Olivia unplugged her laptop and moved it closer to Angela, “So you’ve got to login with your Harvard email to this website to request a ride, and only students who are authorized can get a ride,” she opened up the website for requesting rides and signed in, “Tadah!”

“Wha- how?” Angela studied Olivia’s legs, kicking one gently, “And you can walk just fine!”

“So can the athletes,” Olivia tabbed over to an old article on The Harvard Crimson, “The system was designed by a group of grad students here at Harvard eleven years ago.” The article showed a group of five students standing awkwardly in front of a golf cart that had been painted crimson, “So I got a little bit bored and decided to explore a bit.”

“This isn’t legal, is it?”

“I mean I’m not hurting anyone, and I make sure to cover my tracks,” Olivia grinned, “C’mon, don’t you wanna hear how I did it?”

Angela sighed, “I do actually.”

“That’s the spirit!” Olivia swapped over to an email inbox, “So, I did a bit of poking around and found the harvard.edu emails of the people that were on the team. To start I sent emails to all the accounts, and got replies from none of them; which isn’t too surprising, since they’ve all long graduated. After that I started doing research on them. I was able to find four of them on facebook, linkedin and all that, but this one guy,” she flipped back to the picture and pointed at a gaunt looking man with large eyes, “E. Alderson, he had absolutely zero social media presence”

Angela shrugged, “Some people are like that.”

“Yeah crazy Stallman types,” Olivia flipped back to the email, “Weirdly enough his email was the easiest to crack, I ran dictionary attacks against all the accounts and his was the only one that got broken.”

“What was the password?”

“helloundergrads, no spaces and all lower case.”

“This sounds like a honeypot,” Angela leaned back and grabbed a slice of pizza and a napkin.

“That’s what I thought at first, so I poked around a bit in a way that I was sure would get noticed if he still used the email and waited for a week, but nothing happened. So I decided it was worth pursuing further,” Olivia spun in her chair, “After looking a bit I found that the email account was linked with a github account, and I signed in where I found...” she trailed off as she opened up github, “A repository for the self driving golf cart project!”

Angela ate her pizza as she looked at the repository, “What was his github password?”

“No clue, I did a recovery and reset it. But from there I figured out that they keep a database on the website with all the students eligible to get a ride, and that’s what they referenced during the login process, check this out,” Olivia opened up a PDF, “It’s a user guide for how to manage the website for the faculty; and here-” she scrolled down about halfway, “Are instructions on how to modify the database. So I just had to get access to an account that had permission to access the database.”

Angela finished her slice of pizza and grabbed a second one, “How did you manage that?”

“Ah, I had to resort to a classic hacking technique for that.”

Angela narrowed her eyes, “A classic?”

“I went to the faculty offices, waited for someone to go to the bathroom and plugged a rubber ducky into their computer that I wrote to add me to the server,” Olivia held up a flash drive, “Fear my powers.”

Angela clapped softly, “I sit in awe at your overwhelming prowess.” She grabbed a piece and held it out for Olivia, who took it with a thanks.

Olivia devoured the slice in one go and got up for another piece, amused by the horrified look on Angela’s face. “What? I haven’t eaten since yesterday,” Olivia said, “So, want to go to the lab and show me how to work with nanomachines?”

“And how were we planning on getting to the lab?” Angela raised an eyebrow.

“Just once, you know you want to,” Olivia nudged Angela.

“Fine, we’ll take the transportation meant for handicapped students to lab,” Angela rolled her eyes.

“If it were so important then why do the athletes get it too? They can walk, they’re fit enough,” Olivia set her slice down and looked at the box. Half the pizza still remained, “We’re not finishing this in one sitting, Blondie.”

Angela smiled, “Giving up already? We can take what’s left to the lab. I’m sure there’ll be somebody who wants it there.”

“Why must you goad me, Miss Ziegler. Now I have to try to eat the rest of the pizza,” Olivia picked up her unfinished slice, “I’ll make that attempt at the lab if you wanna go after this?”

“I see your love for computers beats out your love for food,” Angela nodded, “You’ll make for a fantastic grad student one day.”

“However did you know that was my ambition?”

“You’re double majoring in math, joined a research lab and spend your free time hacking; face it Olivia, you’re obsessed,” Angela stood up.

“Ohoh, I’m that obvious eh?” Olivia took a bite out of her slice and requested a ride on the website, “Some things are hard not to love,” she muttered.

Angela tapped a finger against her chin, “What first got you into computers?”

“My dad. He got me a ThinkPad for my sixth birthday and we installed Arch on it together,” Olivia warmly smiled, “I don’t think we ever actually got Arch properly working though, because I remember using Windows on it when I was seven.”

“A tragedy,” Angela said.

“Oh shut up, I should be the operating system snob,” Olivia finished the slice, “Ah, our chariot awaits,” she grabbed the box and the pair headed out.

__________________________________

The golf cart had no steering wheel, though there was an emergency brake for the passengers. On the dash was a card reader, where Olivia had to swipe her ID to prove that she was the one who called the cart. Once that was done and the two hopped inside the car set off, moving out of the way of pedestrians along its way.

Olivia leaned back in her seat, “I wish I could have a self driving car.”

Angela watched the campus go past them, “You’re not going to try to hack Uber and get free rides from them?”

“Do you want me to get arrested? That’s how I get arrested.” Olivia’s phone chimed and she glanced at it, frowning when she saw the email.

“What’s wrong?”

“Uhh, look at this,” Olivia held the phone up. She’d gotten an email from the account she’d hacked that said, “Y’know, walking is probably healthier for you.”

Angela started to laugh, “Looks like someone let you hack him.”

“How did you know it was me?” Olivia sent before giving Angela an exaggerated look of horror.

Olivia’s phone chimed again and they both leaned in to read the message.

“I start getting weird logins on my old email account, someone resets my old github account password and then a new name suddenly appears in the website’s database.”

Angela wrapped an arm around Olivia, “You just got pwned pretty hard, Olivia. You might want to lay down.”

“Okay, wow yeah,” Olivia laughed in spite of herself, running a hand through her hair. “Though he can’t prove that I hacked his email, I did everything from a virtual machine with TOR routing.”

Another email arrived, “I left that there in the hopes someone would eventually find it. Have fun with the free rides, but try to exercise.”

“Hey! We got the creator’s blessing to keep using these,” Olivia leaned into Angela.

“Oh no,” Angela looked down at Olivia who smirked up at her.

“I’m never walking anywhere again.” Olivia took a deep breath, then realized she was almost in Angela’s lap and sat up fast enough the cart wobbled.

Angela pulled her arm away, clasping them together in her lap, “He did say to try to exercise.”

“I can take the golf cart to the gym.”

“There’s something fundamentally wrong about that, I just can’t quite place my finger on it,” Angela said.

The cart pulled to a stop in front of the building Winston’s Lab was in and the two hopped out. Angela jogged ahead and held the door open for Olivia and they headed towards the elevators.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honeypot_(computing) 
> 
> This is what Angela is referencing when she hears the password, because it seems too easy.
> 
> So school is a thing that's happening. And writing is a thing that's really not. Sorry to all 12 of my readers (that might be overestimating). I'll try to write when I have free time though.


End file.
